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Journal of Modern Languages
Vol. 20, (2010)
64
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive
Journalism: A Study of Texts by American and
Iranian EFL Columnists1
Mina Noorian
Islamic Azad University
Reza Biria
Islamic Azad University
Abstract Interpersonal metadiscourse refers to aspects of a text which reflect the
writer’s position towards both the content in the text and the reader. This study
aimed to explore the role of interpersonal metadiscourse markers in persuasive
writing. For this purpose, two elite newspapers in the United States and Iran,
The New York Times and Tehran Times respectively, were chosen. Based on a
textual analysis of 12 opinion articles (6 from each newspaper), this
investigation intended to find out whether American and Iranian EFL writers
employed the same amounts of interpersonal markers (hedges, certainty
markers, commentaries, attitude markers, and attributors) in their texts. The
findings revealed that interpersonal metadiscourse was present in both sets of
data, but that there were significant differences between the two groups
regarding the occurrences of interpersonal markers, specifically in the case of
commentaries. The results suggested that different factors interacted in the
choice of metadiscourse markers in newspaper opinion articles written by
American and Iranian EFL columnists: culture-driven preferences, genre-
driven conventions, and Iranian EFL writers’ extent of foreign language
experience. The study also stressed the need for more contrastive studies in the
area of metadiscourse and more attention to this important element in L2
writing courses.
Keywords: Contrastive rhetoric, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writers,
Genre, Metadiscourse markers, Newspaper discourse, Persuasive writing
1. Introduction In general, language employed in writing, like that used in oral communication,
serves three functions (macro-functions): ideational, interpersonal, and textual.
In Halliday‟s (1985) grammatical theory, the ideational or referential function
represents the external world, consisting of the representation of physical
experiences and mental processes like thoughts and feelings as well as the basic
logical relations that happen among these experiences and processes. The
1 We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. Our gratitude extends to Dr. Carole Shaffer-Koros for revising the manuscript.
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive Journalism
65
interpersonal function encompasses the relations between the addresser and the
addressee in a discourse situation. Finally, in Halliday‟s theory, the textual
function is concerned with the way language establishes links with itself and the
situation to create a text that is cohesive and coherent.
The theoretical basis for the term „metadiscourse‟ has been derived from
Halliday‟s classification of language macro-functions. Vande Kopple (1985, p.
83) defines metadiscourse as “discourse that people use not to expand referential
material but to help their readers connect, organise, interpret, evaluate, and
develop attitudes toward that material”. He suggests that writers usually operate
on two levels: on the primary level, the propositional content or the information
about the subject matter is supplied; on the metadiscourse level, nothing is
added to the content but the readers are assisted to understand the message and
the writer‟s views. Vande Kopple states that primary discourse fulfills the
ideational function while metadiscourse satisfies the interpersonal and textual
functions of language. Some examples of metadiscourse are the underlined parts
of the following sentences:
(1) I hope they agree with this notion.
(2) As mentioned before, this area has not received much attention.
(3) Unfortunately, the war broke out.
(4) First, the two sides should start the talks.
Metadiscourse is mostly considered as a set of linguistic devices used to
communicate attitudes and to mark the structural properties of a piece of
discourse. Therefore, it is regarded as a key element of persuasive writing
(Fuertes-Olivera et al., 2001). Crismore, Markkanen, and Steffensen (1993, p.
40) point out that metadiscourse plays a vital role in the creation of solidarity
between the addresser and addressee since it helps to construct a coherent text
and reflects the writers‟ “personality, credibility, considerateness of the reader,
and relationship to the subject matter and to readers”. Consequently, this
element is highly dependent on the contexts in which it occurs and is closely
connected to the norms of specific cultural and professional communities
(Hyland, 1998).
The focus of this study, therefore, is on metadiscourse use as an essential
characteristic of a text. The metadiscourse markers used in English opinion
articles written by American and Iranian columnists were compared. In fact, this
study aimed at examining the interpersonal metadiscourse categories
predominantly used in these two groups of texts and identifying the similarities
and differences between them in this regard.
In the following, section 2 will discuss the concept of metadiscourse and
will briefly review its theoretical and empirical backgrounds. Section 3 provides
relevant information about the material, data collection, and analysis procedures.
The findings regarding the number and use of interpersonal metadiscourse
markers are presented in section 4, followed by a discussion of the results in
section 5. Finally, section 6 includes the conclusions, implications, limitations of
the study and some suggestions for future research.
Noorian & Biria
66
2. Literature Review Since 1980, various definitions of metadiscourse have been proposed by
different researchers (e.g. Crismore, 1989; Hyland, 1998, 2005; Mauranen,
1993; Vande Kopple, 1985). The first definition is attributed to Williams (1981,
pp. 211-212) who considers metadiscourse as “writing about writing, whatever
does not refer to the subject matter being addressed”. Crismore (1983, p. 4)
defines metadiscourse as “the author‟s intrusion into the discourse, either
explicitly or non-explicitly, to direct rather than inform the readers”. Although
the definitions provided so far are varied, most scholars agree that metadiscourse
is equal in importance to the primary discourse and that it is essential for the
appropriate construction of any piece of writing.
As such, metadiscourse is considered as a cover term consisting of
different lexical items like discourse connectives (but, therefore, so…), adverbs
(presumably, obviously…), modals (may, might…), personal pronouns (I, we,
my…), and mental-state verbs (think, believe, doubt…) (see, for example,
Camiciottoli, 2003; Vergaro, 2002). It has also been linked to non-verbal
elements like punctuation (e.g. colon), typographical markers (e.g. parentheses,
italics), and other visual non-linguistic features such as paragraph indentations,
layout, quality of paper, and font (Kumpf, 2000). In addition, metadiscourse
devices can range from a single word (e.g. possibly) to a complete sentence (e.g.
the following paragraphs deal with the topic of economy). It should be noted
that the degree and type of metadiscourse use differs according to the rhetorical
situation (i.e. writer, reader, topic, occasion, and genre) (Crismore, 1984).
Many metadiscourse studies (see Crismore et al., 1993; Dafouz, 2003;
Hyland, 1998; Vande Kopple, 1985, among others) utilise the Hallidayan
distinction between textual and interpersonal functions of language in order to
classify the linguistic units. Textual metadiscourse, sometimes referred to as
metatext (Mauranen, 1993), is employed to organise the text and direct the
reader through the text. It fulfills Halliday‟s textual function. On the other hand,
interpersonal metadiscourse is used to develop the relationship between the
reader and the writer. According to Crismore (1984), when interpersonal
metadiscourse markers are added to texts, along with first and second person
pronouns, the interpersonal function of language will be attained.
Interpersonal metadiscourse is an important rhetorical strategy since,
according to Vande Kopple (1985), it is the precise layer of the text in which the
writer intrudes into his/her text to add affective values and demonstrate the
degree of commitment toward the propositional content. Previous research (e.g.
Crismore et al., 1993; Mauranen, 1993) has shown that writers from diverse
language backgrounds differ in their use of metadiscourse. Moreover, the quality
and quantity of this feature have shown to be different in various genres (Abdi,
2002). As a result, the investigation of interpersonal metadiscourse markers can
be useful in revealing the norms of different cultures and genres.
For a long time contrastive rhetoric has focused on the specific features
that different cultures favor in their written products and has proved to be a
useful approach to uncover certain aspects of discourse. Kaplan (1966)
introduced contrastive rhetoric and indicated that the linguistic and cultural
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive Journalism
67
traditions of EFL writers may influence the way they write. Therefore, foreign
students may have to adopt new conventions that are in agreement with the
demands made upon them by the target language system (Kaplan, 1987).
The concept of metadiscourse has generated a lot of research in recent
years. A range of recent studies in text analysis have been devoted to the
presence and functional role of metadiscourse markers in various genres
including science popularisations (Crismore & Farnsworth, 1990), textbooks
(Crismore, 1983, 1984; Hyland, 1999), student writing (Simin & Tavangar,
2009; Steffensen & Cheng, 1996), research articles (Abdi, 2002; Hyland, 1998,
1999), and advertisements (Fuertes-Olivera et al., 2001). Metadiscourse has also
been used to examine rhetorical differences in the texts written by different first
language groups (Crismore et al., 1993; Dahl, 2004; Mauranen, 1993) and those
produced by EFL and native writers (Faghih & Rahimpour, 2009).
Surprisingly, the investigation of metadiscourse in journalistic texts has
not received much attention in discourse analysis research. In fact, the issue has
been examined by only a few writers (Abdollahzadeh, 2007; Dafouz, 2003,
2008; Le, 2004). Newspaper discourse is probably among the most remarkable
genres since it is undeniably one of the most popular public media which has a
wide range of audience. According to Fowler (1991), readers gain a large
proportion of their knowledge of the world through the media, particularly
newspapers.
Dafouz‟s (2003) contrastive study explored the use of metadiscourse in the
opinion columns of two leading newspapers: the Spanish El País and the British
The Times. The results showed that the Spanish writers used significantly more
textual metadiscourse than the English writers while the British-English group
used more interpersonal markers than the Spanish group. Regarding
interpersonal markers, the findings marked hedges as the most frequent category
in the corpus, followed by attitudinal markers, and certainty markers.
Commentaries showed the lowest scores and attributors were almost absent in
the corpora. In general, the analysis disclosed that the two groups differed only
in the use of hedges (English writers used more).
In a similar study, Abdollahzadeh (2007) examined the use of
metadiscourse in Persian and English (British and U.S.) newspaper editorials.
Regarding the use of interpersonal markers, the results revealed significant
differences for the subtypes of hedges (English editorials used more) and
certainty markers (Persian editorials used more). According to Abdollahzadeh,
the heavy use of certainty markers by the Persian editorial writers was due to an
Iranian tradition of valuing and abiding by the rules of those in power without
expressing uncertainty about social and religious issues. The heavy use of
hedges by the English group, however, was attributed to their being more polite
to their readers.
In a nutshell, metadiscourse is a relatively new concept; however, it is
increasingly important to research in reading, writing, and text structure. Despite
their importance, studies of metadiscourse outside of European or U.S. contexts
have not received the attention they deserve (Crismore & Abdollahzadeh, 2010).
Furthermore, very few studies have examined metadiscourse devices in
Noorian & Biria
68
persuasive newspaper articles and, to the authors‟ knowledge, no study so far
has contrasted metadiscourse in opinion articles written by American and
Iranian EFL journalists. Considering all this, the researchers decided to present a
text-oriented study, analysing a corpus of English texts written by L1 American
and L2 Iranian columnists with regard to the use of interpersonal metadiscourse
markers and their pragmatic-rhetorical role in this important genre.
3. Methodology
3.1. Material The data of this research came from the opinion columns of two influential and
prestigious newspapers in the United States and Iran: The New York Times and
Tehran Times respectively. These two are among the most widely read
newspapers in the United States and Iran (see also Appendix A). In addition,
their opinion articles cover a wide variety of topics.
Twelve English texts (6 from each newspaper) comprising 10139 words
were selected. The texts derived from the American newspaper contained a total
of 4991 words ranging from 760 to 1013 words whose average length amounted
to 832. The articles extracted from the Iranian newspaper comprised 5148
words. The lexical range of the articles was between 676 and 1188 with an
average length f 858 words. The selected articles were matched for length and
topic in order to ensure comparability. They were written by Americans (as
Native-English Speaking writers) and Iranians (as EFL writers) and they
covered various topics including Middle East issues, health issues, and a human
rights issue (see Appendix B).
The reason why newspaper articles were chosen in this analysis is closely
related to the importance of mass communication in present day societies.
Within the wide range of text-types that a newspaper presents, this study
concentrated on opinion articles. Like editorials, opinion columns are written
about topics that are “of particular societal importance at the time of
publication” (Le, 2004, p. 688). However, contrary to editorials, these texts are
written by experts and they may not reflect the official position of the
newspaper. Connor (1996) considers opinion columns as one of the most
appropriate examples of persuasive texts in all countries which can set standards
for persuasive writing.
3.2. Data Collection Procedure The first step involved the collection of 140 opinion articles from the online
archives of The New York Times and Tehran Times. The data collection was
done in August 2009 and the articles were published in the period between 1995
and 2009. All the texts were saved into the computer to form a database of
corpora.
Then, 6 articles from each newspaper were finally chosen for the analysis
since, as mentioned before, there was a need to control the different variables
involved in the writing of the texts such as the writers‟ native language, topic,
and length of the articles. As many discourse analysts have proposed (e.g.
Dafouz, 2003; Hyland, 1999; Thompson, 2001), the topic of a text may
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive Journalism
69
influence the type and frequency of metadiscourse categories found. Therefore,
the choice of theme was carefully controlled in this research. Furthermore, a
careful selection needed to be made among the texts collected from the two
newspapers since some of the texts derived from The Times were not written by
Americans (as native speakers of English) and in the same way, there were texts
collected from Tehran Times that were not produced by Iranians (as EFL
writers). Finally, of the matched articles, 4 were discarded in order to balance
the length of the articles for both corpora.
3.3. Data Analysis The analysis of the selected texts was closely based on Dafouz‟s (2003)
taxonomy of interpersonal metadiscourse markers (see Table 1). It is important
to note that metadiscourse instances usually play a multifunctional role;
therefore, in this research, metadiscourse markers were analysed based on the
primary function of each element in its particular context (see Dafouz, 2003).
This required an individual and manual analysis of all the metadiscourse
elements present in the selected articles.
Table1. Dafouz‟s (2003) classification system for interpersonal metadiscourse
Macro-category Subcategory Examples
Hedges:
Withhold full commitment to the statements presented by
the writer
Epistemic verbs Probability adverbs
Epistemic expressions
May / might / it must be two o‟clock Probably / perhaps / maybe
It is likely
Certainty markers:
Express full commitment to the statements presented in
the text
Undoubtedly / clearly / certainly
Attributors: Mention explicitly the source
of information and use these
references with persuasive goals
„x‟ states that… / As the Prime
Minister claimed
Attitude markers:
Express the writer‟s affective
values toward the text and the reader
Deontic verbs
Attitudinal adverbs Adjectival constructions
Cognitive verbs
Have to / we must understand
Unfortunately / remarkably It is absurd / it is surprising
I feel/ I think / I believe
Commentaries: Help to establish reader-
writer rapport through the text
Rhetorical questions
Direct address to reader
Inclusive expressions Personalisations
Asides
What is the future of Europe…?
You must consider, dear reader
We all agree that / let us consider I do not want / he is telling me
The presidential candidate preached
proudly (and falsely) to his voters
After identifying and categorising the metadiscourse markers, a quantitative
analysis was conducted to determine the frequency of different types of
interpersonal metadiscourse and to find the differences between the two groups
in this regard. In general, quantitative information was essential for marking the
existence of and the relative emphasis placed on various metadiscourse
Noorian & Biria
70
categories and subcategories in the data. Since a single judgment seemed to be
inadequate, the articles were also analysed independently by an expert by coding
all metadiscourse markers. An inter-rater reliability of 0.84 was obtained which
indicated that the coding was acceptable.
Finally, the statistical analysis involved the use of non-parametrical means
(Mann-Whitney U test) since the items in the sample articles were not normally
distributed. In fact, the Mann-Whitney test was employed to see whether the
differences between the two sets of data with regard to the occurrences of
metadiscourse markers were significant. Since the sample texts contrasted did
not have exactly the same length (see section 3.1), the raw figures were
standardised to a common basis (markers per 1000 words) in order to compare
the frequency of occurrence. The 1000-word approach is the usual method
employed by many researchers (see Hyland, 1998, 1999; Faghih & Rahimpour,
2009).
4. Results The findings (Table 2) disclosed interesting quantitative similarities and
differences between the two sets of data. Comparing the total number of
interpersonal markers used in both groups of texts revealed that metadiscursive
elements were employed far more frequently by the American writers and the
difference showed to be statistically significant2. As for the interpersonal
metadiscourse categories and subcategories, the statistical results indicated that
the two groups differed only in the occurrences of commentaries and personal
markers.
Table 2. Results for Interpersonal Metadiscourse Categories and Subcategories
Macro-category Subcategory
Iranians
No. of markers
Americans
No. of markers
Mann-Whitney
U Test Asymp. Sig (2-tailed)
Hedges
Epistemic verbs
Probability adverbs Epistemic expressions
27
23
2 2
36
25
8 3
0.200
0.522
0.153 0.592
Certainty
markers 22 8 0.108
Commentaries
Rhetorical questions
Inclusive expressions Asides
Personalisations
Direct address to reader
15
10
3 2
0
0
65
3
21 6
31
4
0.037 *
0.171
0.135 0.073
0.022 *
0.140
Attitude markers
Deontic verbs
Attitudinal adverbs
Adjectival constructions Cognitive verbs
13 9
3
1 0
24 11
0
3 10
0.423 0.575
0.059
0.528 0.140
Attributors 11 28 0.076
2 The results were standardized to a common basis (markers per 1000 words) in order to compare the frequency of occurrence since the articles contrasted differed in length.
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive Journalism
71
(Continued)
Total no. of interpersonal
markers 88 161 0.037 *
* The difference is significant at the 0.05 level (p<.05).
As seen in Table 2, in terms of frequency of occurrence, the ranks of most of the
interpersonal metadiscourse macro-categories differed from one group to
another. In the texts written by the Iranian EFL columnists, hedges were the
most numerous interpersonal marker (30.68%), followed by certainty markers
(25%), commentaries (17%), attitude markers (14.77%), and finally attributors
(12.5%). In the other group, however, commentaries were the most frequent
interpersonal marker and the difference between the two groups was significant.
In fact, this category comprised 40.37% of all the interpersonal metadiscourse
used by the American writers. Hedges were the second most frequent marker
(22.36%) for this group, followed by attributors (17.39%), attitude markers
(14.9%), and certainty markers (5%).
As for the subcategories of interpersonal metadiscourse, the statistical
analysis revealed both differences and similarities between the two groups.
Among the three types of hedges (i.e. epistemic verbs, probability adverbs,
epistemic expressions), epistemic verbs were employed the most by both groups
of writers (Iranians 85%, Americans 69%). Linguistically speaking, modal
epistemic verbs (e.g. would, can, could, may) were the most frequently used
strategy to express caution in both sets of data. Regarding the subtypes of
commentaries (i.e. rhetorical questions, inclusive expressions, asides, personal
markers, direct address to reader), the two groups of writers appeared to have
very different preferences to establish rapport with their readers. The Iranian
writers preferred the use of rhetorical questions while the American group
favored the use of personal markers (I, my…) and inclusive expressions (we,
our…) which comprised 80% of all the commentaries used in this group. As
seen in Table 2, the difference between the two sets of data was statistically
significant only with regard to the occurrences of personal markers. Finally,
among the four types of attitudinal markers (i.e. deontic verbs, attitudinal
adverbs, adjectival constructions, and cognitive verbs), deontic verbs (should,
have to…) were used more than others by both groups of writers.
5. Discussion The presence of interpersonal metadiscourse in the selected texts supported
Dafouz‟s (2008) idea concerning the essential role of this important element in
the construction of persuasion in the genre of newspaper opinion articles.
Furthermore, the heavy use of interpersonal markers by the American group
confirmed Ädel‟s (2006) study, in which she indicated L1 American writers‟
concern for reader-writer interaction. It is probable that in American culture, the
writers opt for the use of more interpersonal metadiscourse in order to gain
acceptance and solidarity, especially with a general audience.
The analysis of the data revealed that hedges occupied a high position in
both sets of data. This was in line with the findings of many studies (Abdi, 2002;
Noorian & Biria
72
Dafouz, 2003, 2008; Hyland, 1999) in which it was shown that hedges hold a
predominant position among different interpersonal metadiscourse categories. It
was also found that both groups of writers favored the use of epistemic verbs,
specifically modal verbs. This was also consistent with other studies in which
modal epistemic verbs were used as the predominant strategy for hedging.
Additionally, the results of this study confirmed the key role of hedges in
persuasive texts where the author “needs to strike a difficult balance between
commitment to his/her ideas and respect and dialogue with the reader” (Dafouz,
2008, p. 107).
In general, hedges have shown to be an essential element of different
genres such as research articles (Hyland, 1998, 1999), advertisements (Fuertes-
Olivera et al., 2001) as well as newspaper opinion articles (Dafouz, 2003, 2008)
and editorials (Abdollahzadeh, 2007). Hedging shows the degree of
tentativeness, possibility and/or politeness that writers use in their texts.
According to Camiciottoli (2003), hedges can function to mitigate the writer‟s
authorial position which makes the text more reader friendly. Hedging then can
be considered as an important characteristic of professional writing. The ability
to hedge effectively and successfully is a rather difficult skill, especially for EFL
students, and needs to be considered seriously by both teachers and students.
Certainty markers were another interpersonal marker present in the corpus.
These items (also called emphatics or boosters) are regarded as an important
aspect of opinion articles since they allow readers to find out about the writer‟s
opinion and they create a sense of solidarity with readers (Dafouz, 2008).
Although the results of this study revealed that the two groups did not differ
statistically in the use of certainty markers, it was found that the Iranian writers
used them more. In fact, this type of marker showed a low occurrence in the
American English texts. The reason could be that the American columnists tried
to be more considerate and polite to their audience by limiting the use of
certainty markers. On the other hand, the more frequent use of this marker by
the Iranian group could indicate that the Iranian writers were probably more
assertive in their persuasive writing. The following examples3 show how the
Iranian and American writers emphasise their overtly stated opinions by
employing these intensifying items:
(1) TTArticle3 “The Iraq War and U.S. Soldiers‟ Suicides”
Undoubtedly, in history, the mass killing of the people of Iraq will
eternally be the highlight of George W. Bush‟s legacy.
(2) NYTArticle6 “Guantánamo‟s Long Shadow”
No one can seriously doubt that cruelties and indignities have been
inflicted on prisoners at Guantánamo.
3 Examples are coded according to the two selected newspapers: TT is Tehran Times and NYT is The New York Times.
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive Journalism
73
The significant use of commentaries by the American writers compared to the
Iranian columnists disclosed the American writers‟ considerable concern for
establishing rapport with their readers. Of the five various subtypes of
commentaries, personal markers and inclusive expressions were employed more
frequently by the American writers. This finding coincided with Mauranen‟s
(1993) research, in which she indicated Anglo-American writers‟ frequent
signaling of their personal presence in academic texts. It appears that both
personal markers and inclusive expressions play an important role in American
opinion articles since they allow writers to express their opinion in a more
personal way and help the reader find out about the writer‟s stance. According to
Crismore (1989), the use of these markers creates reader-writer solidarity which
promotes comprehension.
The preponderance of personal markers and expressions of inclusion by
the American writers suggested that they had a preference for adopting a
personal style (as shown in examples 3 and 4) while Iranians preferred
employing an impersonal rhetorical style (as in example 5) in writing this
particular genre. Using the third person indefinite pronoun „one‟ instead of
personal markers, inclusive expressions or expressions of direct address to the
reader by the Iranian writers is probably considered awkward to American
writers because it has the disadvantage of creating distance and diminishing the
level of interaction in the text.
(3) NYTArticle5 “A Hanging and a Funeral”
After watching Saddam‟s hanging in the morning, I was sitting at my
computer late in the afternoon and suddenly heard the strains of “My
country „tis of thee, sweet land of liberty” being played on the TV in
the next room. When I checked what was going on, I saw President
Ford‟s coffin being unloaded from Air Force One.
(4) NYTArticle6 “Guantánamo‟s Long Shadow”
Over many years the United States has worked to persuade and compel
governments around the world to abide by the rules. By spurning our
own rules, we put that effort at risk.
(5) TTArticle4 “Another Middle East Peace Conference”
In other words, the outstanding questions, such as those pertaining to
Palestine‟s territorial integrity, the final status of East Beit-ul-
Moqaddas…have been raised repeatedly, but each time no proper
answer has been provided. Thus, one cannot have much hope about
such diplomatic talks and international conferences.
The analysis showed that personal markers were the most frequent subtype of
commentaries in the texts written by Americans while rhetorical questions were
Noorian & Biria
74
used more frequently by the Iranian writers. The heavy use of personal markers
in the American English texts and their absence in the other group indicated that
the American writers felt more comfortable using self-mentions (personal
markers) in the genre of opinion articles while the Iranian group probably saw it
as inappropriate, believing that it conflicted with the formality usually practiced
in newspaper discourse. In general, the difference could be attributed to Iranian
and American writers‟ different approaches to formal writing (e.g. newspaper
discourse, research articles) which could influence their degree of freedom in the
use of personal markers. The Iranian writers, however, preferred the use of
rhetorical questions. A possible explanation could be that they generally act very
conservatively and contrary to American writers, they opt for the use of more
implicit ways of establishing bonds with readers such as the use of rhetorical
questions.
The findings of this research regarding the presence of attitudinal markers
in the selected articles coincided with Dafouz‟s (2003, 2008) study, in which she
pointed out that this type of marker is regarded as a persuasive tool in the eyes
of the reader in the genre of opinion columns. Contrary to hedges that are
considered as weakening expressions, attitudinal markers (like certainty
markers) are regarded as strengthening ones (Dafouz, 2008). From a linguistic
perspective, the findings suggested that both groups of writers considered
deontic verbs as a key strategy to convey their affective values towards the
propositional content. With regard to cognitive verbs, the analysis of the data
showed that they were present in the American English texts while they were
non-existent in the other group. This finding indicated that Iranian columnists
probably tried to show respect for their readers by keeping their distance from
them and avoiding the use of markers which require the explicit signaling of
their personal presence. Nonetheless, the use of such devices as cognitive verbs
in opinion articles reflects the tendency of this genre to express the writers‟
opinions and feelings in a much more personal way than is the case for editorials
or research articles. This is probably an area where Iranian EFL writers need
more training.
Finally, concerning attributors, the analysis disclosed that they were used
by both groups of writers. Curiously, this finding was contrary to Dafouz‟s
(2003) expectations, where she stated that due to the particular authorship (i.e.
topic experts) and the linguistic economy of opinion articles, this type is not a
metadiscourse category that characterises this genre. Our analysis, however,
indicated that this marker can be considered as an important persuasive tool,
even in the genre of opinion articles, since it helps writers provide support and
justification for their arguments. Examples 6 and 7 show how the Iranian and
American writers use references to authorities in order to support their ideas
concerning different issues:
(6) NYTArticle3 “War‟s Psychic Toll”
There was plenty of evidence that this would be an enormous problem.
Speaking of Iraq back in 2004, Dr. Stephen Joseph, who had been an
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive Journalism
75
assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration, said, “I
have a very strong sense that the mental health consequences are going
to be the medical story of this war.”
(7) TTArticle6 “The Pentagon‟s Endless Procession of Scandals”
The U.S. has been repeatedly condemned for its treatment of prisoners
at home by the UN human rights watchdog and other international
bodies, not to mention the situation of those held overseas. British
constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman says, “If it is perfectly
legal and there is nothing going wrong there, why don‟t they have it in
America?”
Although the statistical results revealed that the two groups of writers used
attributors to the same extent, numerically, the American group employed them
more. This could indicate that the Iranian writers were more assertive in their
writing and, as topic experts, they relied more on their own opinions in
persuading the readers. However, this interpretation could only be tentative
since it is based on numerical differences. In general, studying this marker
reveals that the kinds of evidence people consider as persuasive may vary from
one culture to another.
6. Conclusion This paper was an attempt to examine the persuasive role of interpersonal
markers in the opinion articles written by a group of American and Iranian EFL
journalists. It also aimed to investigate the similarities and differences between
the two sets of articles regarding the use of interpersonal metadiscourse
categories and subcategories. The results revealed that interpersonal markers
were present in both groups of texts. This finding substantiated the view that
metadiscourse, particularly interpersonal, is an essential feature of professional
rhetorical writing.
Concerning similarities, the results suggested that the presence of certain
types of metadiscourse categories like hedges, certainty markers, and attitude
markers in the articles could be genre-driven. In other words, the similarities
between the two groups could be attributed to the newspaper-genre
characteristics of opinion articles. Both American and Iranian columnists
seemed to be familiar with the rhetorical norms and preferences of their genre.
Moreover, the quantitative analysis of data disclosed both statistical
similarities (in the case of hedges, certainty markers, attitude markers, and
attributors) and differences (in the case of interpersonal metadiscourse, its
category „commentaries‟, and subcategory „personal markers‟) between the texts
written by American and Iranian EFL columnists. These similarities and
differences could be attributed to the two groups‟ cultural and linguistic
preferences and the Iranian writers‟ degree of foreign language experiences.
Clearly, more cross-cultural studies are required before any firm conclusions can
Noorian & Biria
76
be drawn about the differences and their interpretation in terms of metadiscourse
markers.
According to Hyland (2004), the writers‟ cultural and rhetorical
preferences can affect the use of metadiscourse markers and the style of
discourse organisation. It can be concluded that, in order to produce successful
texts in a foreign language, L2 writers must also become familiar with the
cultural conventions of metadiscourse use in the target language. The study also
indicates the need for further studies in order to better understand the complexity
of metadiscourse use in writing.
The findings of this study might be beneficial to pedagogical grounds,
especially L2 writing courses. Metadiscourse is part of the pragmatics of
language, but proficiency in this area is very difficult to gain in a foreign
language (Crismore et al., 1993). According to Mauranen (1993), cultural
differences in metadiscourse use may result in unintentionally inefficient writing
on the part of L2 writers. The results of such studies as the present one then may
be used by teachers in order to inform EFL/ESL students of the differences that
occur in the conventions of metadiscourse use between native and non-native
writers. This knowledge can help foreign/second language writers produce texts
that are more effective or reader-based.
Focusing on the social role, function, and purpose of metadiscourse is,
therefore, an important way of helping students say what they want to in their
texts. Teachers must learn more about metadiscourse use in different discourse
communities (Elbow, 1991) and cultures (Mauranen, 1993) and must teach
students how to identify metadiscourse and then use it for different readers and
genres. This study stresses the need for including metadiscourse markers,
specifically interpersonal ones, in EFL/ESL courses since they are an
indispensable feature of various types of texts such as newspaper discourse,
research articles, textbooks, and student writing.
The findings of the study might have been influenced by a number of
limitations. One problem was the multifunctionality of many metadiscourse
categories and the fact that they can serve several functions simultaneously in a
given context. The small-scale nature of the research, i.e. the limited number of
selected articles, was another limitation of the study. Future studies can be
carried out expanding the corpus size to see if the same results are obtained.
Other contrastive studies may be conducted to compare English and Persian
newspaper articles. Concerned researchers may also choose to analyse other
types of discourse including advertisements, business letters, or PhD
dissertations.
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Appendix A. Selected Newspapers
Tehran Times is Iran‟s first English-language daily newspaper based in Tehran.
It was founded after the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979. This
newspaper covers domestic, political, social, foreign, and sports news as well as
commentary. Tehran Times has turned into a reliable source of news for
hundreds of foreign media outlets and envoys from various countries based in
Tehran who want to learn about the country‟s current events. Its site
(www.tehrantimes.com) is among the most frequently visited websites with over
10,000 visitors each day.
New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and
published in New York City. It is regarded as a national newspaper of record. It
is third in national circulation, after USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. It
is organised into three different sections; namely, News, Opinion, and Features.
The News includes themes on International, National, Business, Technology,
Science, Health, etc. Opinion contains Editorials, Opinion Articles, and Letters
to the Editor. The third section, Features, consists of such parts as Arts, Movies,
Theater, and Travel. Its website (www.nytimes.com) is one of the most popular
American online newspaper websites.
Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Persuasive Journalism
79
Appendix B. List of Selected Opinion Articles
Tehran Times Articles:
1. From Mirage to Mirage; 25 June 2008
2. Mind Control in Ritalin Nation; 7 May 2008
3. The Iraq War and U.S. Soldiers‟ Suicides; 27 April 2008
4. Another Middle East “Peace” Conference; 27 November 2007
5. Saddam Execution Scenario; 10 January 2007
6. The Pentagon‟s Endless Procession of Scandals; 13 June 2006
New York Times Articles:
1. What if Israel and Syria Find Common Ground?; 24 January 2007
2. Reading, Writing and Ritalin; 21 October 1995
3. War‟s Psychic Toll; 18 May 2009
4. Israel, Palestine, Crab Cakes; 19 November 2007
5. A Hanging and a Funeral; 3 January 2007
6. Guantánamo‟s Long Shadow; 21 June 2005
About the Authors Mina Noorian is a M.A. student in Applied Linguistics at the English
Department of Islamic Azad University, Khorasgan Branch, Isfahan, Iran. She
received her B.A. in English Literature from Isfahan University, Iran. Her
research interests lie in pragmatics and metadiscourse.
Reza Biria is an assistant professor of Applied Linguistics at the Post Graduate
School, Islamic Azad University, Khorasgan Branch, Isfahan, Iran. He holds a
Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Isfahan University, Iran. His main research
interests lie in sociopragmatics and discourse analysis.
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